Syria's Assad gives tacit OK to online attacks on press

On Monday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gave his third
public address on the vast unrest that has roiled his nation. Reporters described him as nervous. He, the reporters, or perhaps both, may
have been thinking about the significance of speech No. 3. Both Tunisia's Zine
El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak were overthrown shortly after they
delivered their third addresses on tumult in their countries. My interest,
however, was on a sentence buried near the end of his address. Here's the official translation:

The
army consists of the brothers of every Syrian citizen, and the army always
stands for honour and dignity. Young people have an important role to play at
this stage, because they have proven themselves to be an active power. There
is the electronic army which has been a real army in virtual reality. There
were those who took part in the blood donation campaign, and other initiatives.
I met a number of youth delegations from different sections of society and
found that Syrian youth enjoy a high sense of patriotism, and this is
self-evident because they belong to this country.

Our
message to the news agencies and reporters: If you have a shortage of
professionals to report the correct news ... the hordes of the Syrian Electronic
Army will not be forgiving with you.

The statement sits next to a screenshot of the army's most
frequent and mildest tactic: encouraging followers to saturate online forums
with pro-Assad commentary. The group has taken such actions on American and
French politicians' sites, as well as news sites such as that of the BBC.

But the army also claims responsibility for more invasive
attacks, including defacing websites by exploiting security holes. Their
attacks appear aimed more at the lower-hanging fruit of unsecured sites rather
those who write critically about Syrian affairs: Past targets have included local
town councils in England, Israeli pizza shops, and Australian window sellers.

Nonethless, to my knowledge this is the first time a head of
state has explicitly approved of such actions. Governments are usually
careful to distance themselves from nationalistic hacking groups, even if they tacitly
permit it through lack of law enforcement. By mentioning the Electronic Army, al-Assad is signaling his support of computer sabotage and vigilante censorship in
the name of his country. At least, that is how his online supporters are likely
to interpret his words.

San Francisco-based CPJ Internet Advocacy Coordinator Danny O’Brien has worked globally as a journalist and activist covering technology and digital rights. Follow him on Twitter @danny_at_cpj.

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